Queensland property identity
Warren Ebert
was told last year that if he wanted to buy a new apartment in the Oracle Tower at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, it would cost him $9000 per square metre.

He turned his nose up at the price but his attraction to the high-quality boom-time development found him at the Gold Coast again this year – and he has just bought the same 11th floor apartment facing the beach for $5900 per square metre.

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“If someone says you are getting a bargain, I would say, ‘no, you are getting it for the new price’," Fahey says.

Discounting has been very useful in selling off remaining stock. Niecon’s Nirvana development used to start from $936,000 but was reduced to $643,000 and has now completely sold out.

However, there is some debate as to whether there will be further price cutting at the Gold Coast. Timing in property buying is everything.

CBRE’s latest Residential Market­View report on south-east Queensland would indicate now is not yet the time to enter the market.

“The Gold Coast remains one of the worst-performing residential markets in Australia, with oversupply in units a major issue," CBRE’s valuers said. “There seem to be further risks of more price declines as buyer interest remains low."

Others disagree, suggesting prices won’t fall further but will remain bottomed out for a while to come. Predictably, Ebert says there is “not a chance in the world" that prices in the tower he bought into will fall further.

“I think the properties that are for sale are really good properties. They are not rubbish, they are of very high quality."

But just how long it will take for sales volumes to return to their long-term average is anyone’s guess.

Colliers International has recorded that sales of $1 million-plus apartments are still below the five-year average. Further, there is not one crane on the Gold Coast city skyline at the moment and many say there won’t be until the new stock, such as that bought by Ebert, has been cleared.

There are 115 apartment projects mooted for the Gold Coast, with expected value of $10.9 billion.

The Gold Coast apartment market, however, is a different beast to capital city markets.

Douglas says it is difficult to let more than 50 per cent of the apartments on the Gold Coast and only 10 to 20 per cent are permanently occupied. Talk of yields seems out of place.

“If I ever heard that one of our agents said to a [prospective] buyer what sort of cash return they could get, he would have been working for us for five minutes. It would have been ‘sayonara’."

Ebert says he knows what it takes to kick-start buying in the area again.

“It’s a holiday market – it needs fun money," he says.

“But don’t forget – if you buy and sell in a bad market, you pay less commissions and stamp duty."

From next month, stamp duty concessions will be reinstated in Queensland for home buyers whose purchase is their principal residence.

That will be good stimulus to those who want to buy and retire on the Gold Coast.

The latest population growth figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest the city is gaining back some popularity, growing 1.8 per cent in 2011.

The city added another 9600 new people, the second-biggest addition for a local government area behind Brisbane, but only the 15th-fastest growth rate in the state.